


Promise is a Promise

by limitlessrose (shinealightrose)



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Basically Doyoung does a bad bad thing and has to deal with the consequences, Best Friends, Brief one-sided Dojae, Dark fic, Humiliation from Roleplaying, M/M, Mention of Graphic Sex, Murder, Panic Attacks, Past Relationship(s), original character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-27 18:44:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14431800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinealightrose/pseuds/limitlessrose
Summary: It's been six years since they met, and longer since they were best friends, but they made a promise so here they now are - attending to the worst mistake Doyoung has ever made in his entire life.





	Promise is a Promise

**Author's Note:**

> Please consider the tags, they are there for a reason, even if the graphic snippets are barely mentioned, non-romantic!Doyoung/maleOC.

_ “You said, if I ever needed… anything…?  _

_ Right...?  _

_ To call you if ever I needed a favor, no matter what, no matter when.  _

_ That you’d be there… please?  _

_ Please, Jaehyun, you prom- _

_ Thank you...” _

 

 

 

In the dark like this, it’s almost alright. Every lamp off, curtains shut, only a thin narrow strip of light spilling out from the partially open bathroom door. Doyoung stares at the floor beside the bed, tacky red carpet next to the cheap black sheets. It’s a love motel of the absolute finest quality… maybe if one was already drunk.

He doesn’t drink. Doesn’t like even thinking about the consequences of intoxication right now. Instead, he sits curled up on an overlarge faux-leather chair with his legs pulled up to his chin, nose buried between his knees and his arms around his shins. Wait, waiting. Jaehyun said… Jaehyun promised. Don’t move or do anything, that he’d be there within the hour.

Doyoung hasn’t seen him in over six years. It was at one of their last ritual post-college reunion dinners, him and Jaehyun, and the others… Doyoung doesn’t see any of them now. It’s been too long. They were classmates, friends, best friends, a brotherhood. Doyoung hopes they still are. He wants them to be. He needs them to be.

For a promise. No matter what, no matter when.

Because there’s a dead body laying on the ground beyond the bathroom door. A stranger before tonight. He should have been a stranger too hereafter, only now Doyoung is sure he will see that face - that lifeless face - in his head until the day he dies.

It’s not exactly an ‘accident’ that put it there.

It’s not a man anymore, not a person, or a human being. Doyoung can’t think like that anymore, he can’t, he doesn’t want to. It’s dead now, a thing. Something else, something other than a man who only two hours ago Doyoung was trading shots with in a bar. Running his hands along the side of the man’s waist, tasting his neck, his lips… fucking... All that was before. Before the deception came to light.

Doyoung had been set up. He’d been fucking set up, and by the time he realized it was too late. 

He hasn’t always struggled with a rage problem, but it’s come out now and then. He and Yuta used to fight a lot, in the past. It started with little arguments and minor irritations. Then it grew. A fist to the jaw here, a knee to the groin there, split lips and the occasional black eye. Friendship was one thing, but acting like an asshole was something else. Who knows now why they even fought. Doyoung was easy to rile, somewhat less easier to pacify. Jaehyun was the best at that, calming him down. Poor, poor Jaehyun whose life Doyoung hopes he isn’t about to ruin. 

Someone knocks on the outside door.

Doyoung stands up. His legs are cramped, almost quivering from nerves. But he forces himself to cross the room, peeking out through the gap in the curtain. He checks again through the peephole, then he wipes his tears and snorts out his nose, knowing it won’t help disguise his reddened eyes or the fear in his heart. He quickly opens the door a crack.

“Hi.”

Jaehyun steps cautiously over the threshold, silent, thoughtful. He looks the same as he did six years ago. Still handsome, brown hair, and that kind look on his face that could simultaneously soothe Doyoung’s nerves, and also cause him to wither. He’d tried to kiss Jaehyun after reunion night. They’d made their goodbyes, and the others went home, and Doyoung was so upset and bitter that he launched himself at Jaehyun. Tried to take him to a motel not too different from the one they’re meeting in now. Jaehyun was fortunately more mature than Doyoung. He’d taken his hand, and gently pushed him away. _ “I know you aren’t thinking about me, right now. I’m right, yes?”  _

Doyoung had cried. 

Kind of like how he’s crying right now. A very different set of tears. 

Jaehyun’s eyes tread across the floor, towards the light. Towards the limp hand that lays across the tile. A shadow hulks behind Jaehyun, and Yuta steps in too.

“You brought him?” Doyoung accuses lowly, sniffing once again. 

“I called him on my way over. You need him, Doyoung. You’ll need all of us now.”

“I’m sorry.”

Jaehyun doesn’t respond. Doyoung doesn’t expect him too. Saying sorry won’t make this alright. He’s undeserving of forgiveness. Of anyone’s forgiveness. Not from Jaehyun, not from Yuta. Not from the dead man.

“Tell me exactly what happened.” Jaehyun pushes open the bathroom door. It squeaks on its hinges, causing Doyoung’s teeth to ache. He can’t look at it anymore. He can barely recite what he did.

“He singled me out. I didn’t know it. He had a camera and a recording device. I don’t know what else he wanted out of me but…” Doyoung pauses, wheezing. “Jaehyun, I can’t be caught like this… if the mayor’s opponents find out about this... that I… and  _ men _ … I’m his campaign manager, Jaehyun. If this information reaches the public, his career would be finished.  _ My career  _ would be finished…”

“And so you killed him?”

Jaehyun hasn’t touched the body. He’s just standing over it, looking. Doyoung wants to hit his knees, beg him to help. The only reason he doesn’t is because his legs are frozen stiff and Jaehyun is already here. 

“I didn’t know what else to do… It was… I didn’t know what was I doing… Oh God, I killed a man, I…  _ fuck _ …”

“Quiet,” Jaehyun hisses.

And Doyoung does sink to his knees, tears of desperation stinging his eyes. He’s mostly unaware of Jaehyun speaking again, to himself or to Yuta, into his cell phone, he doesn’t know. His mind is reeling, imagining an all too possible outcome where he’s tried for murder and sent to prison, and the jail sentence isn’t even as scary as what the punishment he fears his boss would heap on him. 

Doyoung and politics originally seemed like a good match. Fresh from college with a half dozen internships under his belt, he’d worked the system and made a name for himself getting men and women more famous than himself elected into office. He’d never idolized the mayor of course, but Moon Taeil had recognized his genius and hired him for the campaign, and that earned him Doyoung’s respect. A respect so fragile Doyoung has no problem imagining himself crushed under the wheel of the mayor’s furious might. It’s enough to have him hyperventilating, almost forgetting the situation at hand. That Doyoung was so afraid of  _ scandal _ he actually killed a man to hide it. He wheezes, hands around his throat gasping for air, the same hands that not two hours ago were-

But then a different hand clasps him by the elbow, Yuta pulling him to stand up.

“Don’t worry,” he says, hugging him. “We’ve got this. We’ve got this for you.”

Ten years ago, when he and Yuta used to beat each other up for little more than a misspoken word or a look, it was Jaehyun who would pull them apart. Jaehyun who would hug him from behind, tying his arms. And it was Sicheng who would drag Yuta back, corralling him, sometimes sitting on top of him until their tempers cooled and they could go back to being friends. Now, it’s Yuta reassuring him, and Doyoung doesn’t know what to make of this.

“Sicheng’s coming in. Yuta, get the door.”

How different how all their lives have turned. Doyoung works for the city. Or at least, he used to. That may be over sooner rather than later, if word of this… murder gets out. Doyoung used to wear sweats to school. Now he wears a suit every day, smart shoes and a tie. Yuta hands him his tie now from off the floor, and Doyoung adds it to the pile where his shirt and suit coat lay dumped. Earlier, he only had time to pull on his boxers and pants, not wanting to be found standing over a dead body with his dick still hanging out.

His pants are wrinkled now. He hasn’t even managed to get the top button through the loop. His hair is ruffled, and he smells, unfortunately, like stale sex. He stands now in contrast to Yuta with his jeans and his windbreaker jacket and his snapback, crisp and smelling like a shower. He must have gone home earlier, was probably readying himself for bed and a night in. Maybe he would have called Sicheng; Doyoung doesn’t know how close the two of them still are.  Yuta works in construction, a contractor, something Doyoung wouldn’t know about, but it suits his former friend.

Yuta leaves him standing in the middle of the room and opens the door. “Hey, come in, quick.”

It’s clear a moment later that Sicheng doesn’t know yet why he’s here.

“Hey, Yuta. Doyoung… I came as soon as…” He stops the second Yuta slams the door and Jaehyun steps out of the way of the bathroom. “Shit… what…” Sicheng jolts.

He’s wearing scrubs and a lab coat underneath an open jacket, a nametag for the blood lab still attached to his collar.

“I need your expertise, Sicheng,” Jaehyun tells him drily.

Sicheng asks no other questions. He looks over the body, looks at Doyoung shaking in the center of the room, at Yuta who stands beside him, a hand rubbing comforting circles over his shoulder.

“Yuta?” Sicheng asks questioningly. Doyoung doesn’t look at him, but he can guess that expression. He’s seen it so many times before, the panic of an angel who doesn’t quite know what to do. Sicheng was always too kind, like Jaehyun but even softer. Sicheng dotes on everybody, lets them do it in return, but the wariness in his eyes whenever someone crosses a line is enough to maim the strongest of men. 

Doyoung refuses to look, but Yuta must have made a silent plea. A moment later, Sicheng joins them in the center of the room. “You know I’m not a crime scene expert, but... okay. I understand.” 

A promise is a promise. They made it years ago. And Doyoung knows Sicheng will honor that now. He glances up through his lashes, watching Sicheng shrug before stepping carefully into the bathroom. Jaehyun closes the door behind them and silence floods the room.

“Is… is he coming too?” Doyoung later asks.

Yuta has stripped the sheets of the bed on Jaehyun’s orders and bagged them up. The only person who saw Doyoung enter with the man was the night desk attendant, a sleepy fellow who probably won’t remember their faces; plus they paid in cash. There’s no reason for anyone to suspect that one of the guests who came into the hotel won’t be leaving on his own two feet. Not if the stranger was working alone. Doyoung knows there’s a chance he wasn’t, but it’s unlikely. The electronics Doyoung found in his note bag have long since been destroyed, primitive recording devices he suspects were for blackmail purposes only.

The man had been so eager to say and get Doyoung to say his name in bed, over and over again.  _ Doyoung, this, Kim Doyoung that. _ Telling Doyoung how hot he was; that he had a tight ass, “ _ does your boss know how tight is your ass?” _

Did Doyoung like this? _“You’d_ _roll over and let anyone fuck you, right? Maybe the mayor, maybe the deputy mayor? Maybe both of them together?_ _Doyoung, you like so much, right? Are you thinking about Moon Taeil right now? You’re thinking about him punishing you right now in this bed, aren’t you? Say you are, Doyoung. Say it loud!”_

It’s humiliating now. The obscenities spoken in bed, with a stranger. A kind of roleplaying Doyoung doesn’t know why indulged in, though at the time, in the heat of moment, he’ll admit the idea was hot.

Doyoung used to be so much more discreet and cautious. He used to not sleep around. Most of the time he doesn’t. It’s too dangerous in his line of work. Doyoung’s personal life should be his own, but politics don’t hold such things sacred. Politics, and alliances, and the implications of who one sleeps with, _ what gender a man sleeps with… _

Is it any wonder Doyoung panicked and left finger marks around that journalist’s neck? 

 

 

 

The last time he was in a relationship he didn’t fear was back in college. 

“You shouldn’t have called him,” Doyoung tells Jaehyun. “He’s a cop.”

“A detective,” Jaehyun corrects him. “And that’s why.”

“He could turn me in. He could turn all of you in, for complicity.”

Jaehyun pauses and gives Doyoung a steady look. They’ve left Sicheng alone in the bathroom, now that the body has been put into a bag, to clean up the evidence in there. Yuta is cleaning the bedroom, the trash can, the walls, the chair, any place either Doyoung or the dead man may have touched.

“He won’t.”

“He could,” Doyoung insists. It gives him chills.

Taeyong had an easy personality back when they were in school. Friendly, cheerful. But he also liked rules. It made him the perfect fit when he joined law enforcement. The last time they all met up, Taeyong looked good, happy. More of a stickler than when they were younger and totally carefree.

Doyoung had wanted, then, to maybe rekindle what they had in college… Taeyong turned him down. The memory of it still stings. So when Yuta announces through the window that he’s here, Doyoung panics. Yuta managed to get a shirt onto him, but Doyoung grabs the hem anyways and tugs, fingers turned to claws, waiting for Jaehyun to get the door. Jaehyun who’s done a fine job all night pretending Doyoung isn’t an absolute wreck. 

Taeyong’s in plainclothes now, heavy sweatshirt and a hoodie pulled down over his ears, bangs parted and a grim face. 

He takes one look at the room, at the activities of Yuta and Jaehyun. At Doyoung, still standing in the center of the room with his arms cradled around himself because he’s afraid. Taeyong doesn’t even pause for long. 

“It’s been a while,” he tells them all with a tight, strained smile. “Tell me what I’m going to find in the bathroom.”

A week later, a month later, a year later, Doyoung is still looking over his shoulder. Expecting to find… he doesn’t know what. The police, another blackmailer? The face of the man he strangled, now buried someplace, Jaehyun wouldn’t tell him where.

Is it worth this, to be so haunted? Maybe not.

Sometimes he wants to break down and confess. Walk into a station and tell them he knows about a murder. That he knows what happened, that the police have it all wrong. Perhaps if he can just say it, say something aloud, some of the guilt he’s been harboring all this time will go away. Or maybe it won’t, but Doyoung doesn’t know that.

He hasn’t seen anyone since. Jaehyun clapped him on the back a few times before he left, reassuring him once more. Sicheng said goodbye, not ‘I’ll see you again.’ Yuta smiled, a grimace more like.

If he turns himself in now, he’ll be turning them in too. The cost of a promise they made to each other way back when.

The only person he’s seen since that night is Taeyong.

He came to him at home, a few days after the cover-up. Doyoung thought he was coming to arrest him. At the very least to demand a favor in return. But Taeyong did none of those. Instead, he hugged him. Kissed him once, then twice.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “for the past.”

Doyoung had wanted to melt, right then and there, and apologize. Instead he stood still, knees locked and a complacent expression, as if he wasn’t imagining every interaction they’d ever had from the best of times all the way down to the worst. Those few happy years where they were together before Doyoung had started acting like an ass. The day Doyoung broke Taeyong’s heart, the day Doyoung tried to do it again and broke his own in the process. The day Taeyong had to show up and attend to the worst mistake Doyoung has ever made in his entire life. 

But Taeyong was here again now, apologizing to  _ him _ of all people. Taeyong who should’ve been cherished all his life and instead Doyoung just couldn’t leave him alone. 

“Do you want to come in?” Doyoung had asked, voice shaky. 

Taeyong shook his head. “Just promise me, you keep your story straight - that you don’t know anything about that room, or the body. We took care of it alright? For you. Your part is done now.”

“Why?” Doyoung wanted to scream. Instead he grit his teeth and kept his cool, knowing he’d regret that forever. 

“Because you’re our friend. We love you. We made a promise. And I... I love you. So please. Forget everything else, and remember that.”

 

 

Two days later, a junior detective was arrested for murder, motive unknown.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Phewww, well that was a ride yeah?
> 
> Come talk to me: [Twitter](https://twitter.com/ShineALightRose) ~ [CuriousCat](https://curiouscat.me/ShineALightRose)


End file.
